Janus Films
Series
Criterion collection volume 2
Language
日本語
Description
Tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire seven out-of-work warriors to protect them from invading bandits.
Series
Language
日本語
Appears on these lists
Asian American & Pacific Islander Month
Asian American and Pacific Islander Month
MPL Criterion Collection
Asian American and Pacific Islander Month
MPL Criterion Collection
Description
This epic masterpiece is about a group of 16th century samurai who are hired to defend a small Japanese village that finds itself annually raided by an army of bandits who steal the meager crops harvested by the peasants. Tired of relinquishing their food supply but woefully inept in combat skills, the villagers decide to hire a band of samurai to protect them. In addition to the primary conflict between the villagers and the bandits, much of the...
3) Ikiru
Series
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
Discovering that he is in the terminal stages of cancer, a clerk spends his last months in search of the meaning to life. After his pursuit of pleasure has failed, he finds self-realization in bringing about the building of a children's playground in the slums and dies quietly fulfilled.
Series
Criterion collection volume 295
Language
日本語
Description
Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking. A portrayal of post-war sexual revolution among Japan's young and privileged.
Series
Criterion collection volume 567
Language
日本語
Description
Revolving around the changing of the seasons, The Makioka Sisters follows the lives of four sisters who have taken on their family's kimono manufacturing business, over the course of a number of years leading up to the Pacific War. A graceful study of a family at a turning point in history, and a poignant evocation of changing times and fading customs.
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Tokyo Story follows an aging couple, Tomi and Sukichi, on their journey from their rural village to visit their two married children in bustling, post-war Tokyo. Their reception is disappointing: too busy to entertain them, their children send them off to a health spa. After Tomi falls ill she and Sukichi return home, while the children, grief-stricken, hasten to be with her.
Series
Criterion collection volume 539
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
After learning that she will be sharing the summer with her father's new girlfriend, a young girl invites some friends to join her at her aunt's house instead. With a sick aunt, a bloodthirsty cat, and evil spirits lurking around, the girls find that it might have been better to stay at home. Bonus features include an experimental film, interviews, and an essay by Chuck Stephens.
Series
Criterion collection volume 24
Language
日本語
Description
A complex crime thriller in which a wealthy shoe manufacturer's chauffeur's son is kidnapped in mistake for his own, and he faces a moral dilemma -- should he pay the ransom anyway and risk losing his position?
Series
Criterion collection volume 190
Language
日本語
Description
A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, directed by Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai), sets Shakespeare's definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. The film fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh Theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.
Series
Criterion collection volume 413
Language
日本語
Description
Set in post-war Tokyo in 1945, a tuberculosis-infected criminal starts an unhealthy relationship with an alcoholic doctor. The patient needs to feel better so that he can retain his status as gang-leader after the ex-leader is released from prison, and the doctor needs to feel like he has a place in society and that life is worth living.
Series
Criterion collection volume 467
Language
日本語
Description
1895, Japan. In a small village, Seki is the wife of the litter carrier Gisaburo. Seki has an affair with Toyiji, a man twenty-six years younger her. Toyiji becomes jealous of Gisaburo and plots with Seki to kill him. After Gisaburo has had plenty of sake to drink and goes to bed, the two strangle Gisaburo and dump his body inside a well in the woods. Seki tells the locals that Gisaburo moved to Tokyo to work. Finally, three years later, suspicions...
Series
Criterion collection volume 432
Language
日本語
Description
A look at acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima, the impossible harmony he created between self, art, and society, and his famously committed public seppuku (ritual suicide). Includes interviews, commentary, documentary, and more.
Series
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Gojira: A prehistoric monster, Godzilla, ravages metropolitan Tokyo. Scientists suspect that H-bomb tests awakened it from a two-million year sleep and they try to develop techniques to stop the monster.
Godzilla, king of the monsters!: When American reporter Steve Martin investigates a series of mysterious disasters off the coast of Japan, he comes face to face with Godzilla, an ancient creature so powerful and so terrifying, it can reduce Tokyo...
16) Tōkyō monogatari
Series
Criterion collection volume 217
Language
日本語
Description
Follows an aging couple, Tomi and Sukichi, on their journey from their rural village to visit their two married children in bustling, post-war Tokyo. Their reception is disappointing: too busy to entertain them, their children send them off to a health spa. After Tomi falls ill she and Sukichi return home, while the children, grief-stricken, hasten to be with her.
Language
日本語
Description
Sanshiro Sugata: Akira Kurosawa's effortless debut is based on a novel by Tsuneo Tomita about the rivalry between judo and jujitsu.
The most beautiful: This portrait of female volunteer workers at an optics plant during world War II, shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory, was created with a patriotic agenda.
Sahshiro Sugata, part two: This sequel is a hugely entertaining adventure, reuniting most of the major players from the original and...
Series
Criterion collection volume 84
Language
日本語
Description
Satiric comedy in which two young brothers refuse to talk until their parents agree to buy them a television set. Set in a 1950s residential suburb of Tokyo.
19) Twenty-four eyes
Series
Criterion collection volume 442
Language
日本語
Description
An elegant, emotional chronicle of a teacher's unwavering commitment to her students, her profession, and her sense of morality. It takes a simultaneously sober and sentimental look at the epic themes of aging, war, and death.
Series
Criterion collection volume 38
Language
日本語
Description
A gangster story about a hitman who lost his last target, and now another hitman is after him.